Patti Smith's "Just Kids" Wins National Book Award

The sublimely engrossing memoir Just Kids by punk goddess Patti Smith isn't just enriching for its first hand account of rendezvous and rubbing elbows with the likes of Andy Warhol, Television, The Velvet Underground, Sam Shepard, Allen Ginsberg, and Harry Smith in the cultural melange of NYC in the late 60s early 70s -- but for its incredibly honest and compassionate portrayal of a kid who didn't know how to do it (Smith) and a kid who was driven but outside of everything (Mapplethorpe).